Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Online Porn Sites and Rapes

One of the reasons for the issuance of the Pornography Law was because some politicians alleged that Online Porn Sites have increased the numbers of Sex Crimes including Rapes in Indonesia.

And based on the same reason, the Minister of Communication and Information Tifatul Sembiring has decided to block Online Porn Sites.

In this regards, I would like to share an article on Viva News written by Ari A. Perdana, an Indonesian Post Graduate student at the University of Melbourne, about two studies in the United States showing that the number of Rapes has decreased after the Internet, including Porn Sites, come to existence.

The two studies, by Anthony D'Amato of the Northwestern Law School titled "Porn Up, Porn Down", and by Ted Kendall of the Economic Dept of the Clemson University titled: "Pornography, Rape and the Internet" show that the number of Rapes in the U.S has decreased between early '90s and after the existence of Online Porn Sites.
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Kendall quoted a survey showing that in 1993 there were 1.6 Rape case in every one thousand people, compared to 0.4 Rape case in every one thousand people after the arrival of online Porn Sites in 2004.

Both studies show that existence of Online Porn Sites does not necessarily mean that there will be an increase in Rape cases. Therefore, in my opinion blocking of those sites would only be effective if followed by law enforcement not just on online Porn sites but also offline Porn materials like DVDs  which has long been declared illegal but not difficult to find.


6 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Harry,
Do you think that the lack of sex education and what seems to be a denial people of all ages enjoy it creates for a healthy social outlook on this area of life?
Pornography, Brothels, Prostitutes, Transexuals, Vice etc are everyday experiences here, yet when talking with my students they are totally embarrassed if you mention the word boyfriend or girlfriend and this goes up to the age of 18.
Banning anything only drives it underground. I don't agree it should be mainstream but ignoring these issues does not make them go away.... oh no soap box time,so I will stop there!
Have a good day :)

Daliana Pacuraru said...

Yes, Luke, you are right! Here prostitution is forbbiden, but everything is going underground!
Interesting studies , Multibrand!
Regards
win

colson said...

Enlightening post to some, we may hope.

I'm afraid though that the minister's reply will be "don't bother me with facts, I've made up my mind" .

Mushfique said...

porn sites and sex crimes do have a great link. banning the sites will ofcourse reduce the amount of crimes occurring but we should also know banning anything does not even yield 80% result...rather anything that is 'banned' gets more attraction to the people somehow!
but its a good initiative by the Indonesian Govt.

Yari NK said...

What a rough and careless conclusion made by those politicians stating that online porn (alone?)has increased the rape cases in Indonesia. I'm sure there are innumerable factors that influence the ups and downs of the sex crimes. No single factor can influence cases like these significantly. Though I believe that the blockage of the porn sites is initiated with good intention at least to some degree.

However, in the end, we all understand why do those politicians readily come to such conclusion. Don't you, Harry?

Unknown said...

@Luke,
You are right banning anything would only make people very curious about it and drives it underground. Especially when many existing laws cannot be implemented properly. So the most important thing is how to make the people aware about what's right and wrong e.g by sex education for young students.

@Wind,
Thank you for your compliment.

@Colson,
I also think that the minister would say that ... LOL


@ibucketbot,
As I have said without proper law enforcement the ban would not be effective.

@Yari,
Several reasons have been said by the politicians, the most focused one being porn site causing rape and sexual crimes.
Their conclusion was part of their efforts to impress people and get their votes in the next election.